[p2p-research] [multitudeproject] The collapse of the patent system

[elifarley]

From
http://multitudeproject.blogspot.com/2010/12/collapse-of-patent-system.html

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2010

The collapse of the patent system!
I predict a major war between corporations and the multitude over
intellectual property rights similar to the copyright war between the
multitude and new artists on one side, and the mainstream cultural
establishment (Hollywood, Sony etc.) on the other. This war will destroy the
patent system as we know it, as with the copyright system that is gradually
fading.

EXPLANATION

1) We are moving towards a Knowhow Economy NOT towards a Knowledge Economy

the Internet technology enhances communication, collaboration and
coordination , which gives an economical advantage to open and social
entities, which in turn means that sharing information and knowledge becomes
a better strategy than controlling and going for it alone.
knowledge becomes free
the model to extract value from society will be primarily based on knowhow,
but also on who you know and on how many people you know.

Having the recipe (knowledge) doesn't mean you are able to make (knowhow)
the cake!
The world is NOT short on ideas, it is rather short on people who do stuff.

2) We already see the emergence of the open enterprise and of open
collaborative communities of innovations. A good source of information is
the  http://p2pfoundation.net/ P2P Fundation .

Creative Commons is on the raise. Creative Commons is a parallel system
emerging out of the conflict between the multitude and the mainstream
media/culture establishment. The multitude said: fine, keep your junk for
yourself, we'll design our own framework for creation and distribution, and
we'll create a separate pool of value which we'll exchange based on our new
framework.

3) As more and more individuals move towards open standards and Creative
Commons, sooner or later we'll have an open community pushing an open
"something" on the market, for which it happens to be a patent. People part
of open communities will not go through the boring patent searching, they
are too busy innovating! The company holding the patent in question will try
to defend it, because the open community constitutes an economical threat.

3) The legal battle: Who is the company going to sue? Suppose that the open
community is a diffuse entity with no head office; not registered as a legal
entity; it's just a bunch of passionate scientists and engineers
collaborating to find solutions to solve socially relevant problems; an ad
hoc, fluid group based on a wiki ( http://openfarmtech.org/ this one  for
example, or  http://ecars-now.wikidot.com/ this one , or a million others).
As a social entity it looks much like the file-sharing community. They've
closed down Napster, they've punished individuals, to put fear into them.
But everyone realized that it's easier to win the lottery than to be sued
for having downloaded a song. They've tried it and it proved to be
unsuccessful. Well guess what? Once the open community launches an open
"something" as Creative Commons, this thing will be picked up by hundreds if
not thousands of others entities around the world, part of different
jurisdictions. The company owning the patent has NO CHANCE. It will make no
sense economically speaking to defend it's patent.

This is the flow... A new culture is changing. Knowledge becomes free. The
way we extract value from our knowledge is by our knowhow associated with
it. Patents will die! We need to adapt.

By AllOfUs
Posted by Tiberius 
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